


time is a little unclear

by PurpleLex



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Danny Rand (mentioned) - Freeform, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Marci Stahl (mentioned) - Freeform, Matt Murdock (mentioned) - Freeform, Moving On, POV Karen Page, Post-Episode: s01e08 The Defenders, flower symbolism, this is all platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 12:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11944062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleLex/pseuds/PurpleLex
Summary: [drabble for #kastleradioweek]They’re a flash of white her eyes are drawn to as soon as her fingers find the light switch.Dusk falls outside but here she stands, too restless to seek sanctuary anywhere else beyond the Bulletin and the work she’s put off for a week too long. Ellison was more than happy to give her an assignment, task one of his best back on a piece, all with a comment that she’d find her office exactly as she’d left it.He was wrong.





	time is a little unclear

**Author's Note:**

> This was kind of inspired by the song 'The Fear' by Ben Howard. And then I threw a ton of flower symbolism into it. And Trish Walker. Lots of her, actually.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

 

 

They’re a flash of white her eyes are drawn to as soon as her fingers find the light switch.

Dusk falls outside but here she stands, too restless to seek sanctuary anywhere else beyond the Bulletin and the work she’s put off for a week too long. Ellison was more than happy to give her an assignment, task one of his best back on a piece, all with a comment that she’d find her office exactly as she’d left it.

He was wrong. The flowers weren’t here when she last left in resignation at the pleading falling from Matt’s lips.

Petite and unassuming, they sit on the edge in a disposable plastic vase. Karen is all too tempted to swat them from their precarious position like a peeved cat. The urge makes her shake her head once, lips pressed tight.

It isn’t their fault she’s like this now, trapped within her own rib-cage and unable to scream at the universe properly for fear it will only take more from her. Forever taking, forever damaging, forever indicting without remorse. Just when she thought she had turned a corner and found reprieve, the ground shakes beneath her and steals another.

Hesitant steps bring her closer.

So small and thin, she thinks of Baby's Breath, but that's not quite right. Karen focuses on the post-it attached instead, blue ink scribbled from the receptionist telling her how they’d been dropped off by persons unknown. There's a stark white card placed with a corner tucked into the soil, though.

Warily, she unfolds it. A lone word jumps out.

_‘Sorry.’_

A sob threatens, violently jerking her shoulders as a hand flies to her face, pushing it back on pure instinct.

Anyone could have sent it. Except — everyone she knew had already done this part of offering sympathies, even if they weren’t quite sure for what, some knowledgeable of one ordinary lawyer Matt Murdock’s disappearance and others joining in on a collective pitying grief for the loss of Daredevil and subsequent sadness inflicted in all he’d saved.

Reasonably, anyone could have sent it, but the truth is much simpler and it pulls in her gut, centering her as she cradles the flowers in hand and sinks behind the desk. She holds the pot against her lap and considers it.

The flowers aren’t typical.

But nothing with Frank ever is.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Karen spends two weeks nurturing the bunch, wondering about what would possess Frank to take a minute out of his days as the Punisher to do something as useless as send condolence flowers, before she admits that they’re dying. The stems more resemble twigs with each passing day, petals hanging on with such fragility that one vibration of the counter knocks them off.

Everything wilts. Everything dies.

Still, disappointment pools in her bones when she bundles them up and throws them away.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's a Saturday spent picking up a take-out order on her way to meet Trish when she passes by a bursting flower shop. Cars buzzing around her as the traffic light stays defiantly red after a few impatient presses to the crosswalk button, Karen is forced to linger long enough that she caves.

They were called Queen Anne's Lace.

The florist offers to share their meaning with a smile. She buys a small starter pot of them instead.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"You grow plants?" Trish asks as she takes the proffered plastic bags.

"Not really. This is just...something stupidly sentimental."

There's another question in the woman's throat at that but Karen shrugs out of her coat and gestures to the hallway with a raised brow. "Where'd you find your locksmith? I might have use for a couple extra deadbolts on my door, too. I tend to attract some interesting characters."

Trish laughs.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Someone starts running around their neighborhood beating up criminals again and for half a second, her heart leaps sickeningly in her throat before the words _'iron fist'_ follow. Ignoring it at the next pitch meeting, Karen works a different story. It feels wrong to report on something she already knows a certain level of truth about -- something she would have to lie so much about.

Foggy calls when the sun sets and she's warming up either her second or third attempt at a can of soup. "Did you hear about our new friend?"

"It's hard to miss news about someone running around with a glowing fist."

He snorts. "...I thought it was Matt for a second. Or maybe I hoped it was, even though if it was him, I'd be strangling him for duping us right about now."

"Yeah, me too." Smiling, she huffs a laugh then. "I would also be there, strangling him. You don't get to call dibs."

"Damn. Then could I go first?"

"Sounds fair."

It's been a month since Matt failed to walk through that door, failed to show back up and hug them like everyone else was doing with their friends. Their family. It's been a month in which the digging has stopped, a wake more ceremonial than anything was held in Matt's church, and Karen finds herself recovering the same as she always has.

It haunts her, just like all the others had too, but she manages to take a deep breath again and steady herself.

Life moves on. She either has to decide to move with it, again, or give up. There's not much of a choice in that for her.

"Hey, you want to get something to eat? I've been cooped up in this office all day and I probably need a break. You can bring Marci," she adds, teasing lightly.

"You got yourself a deal, Page."

 

 

* * *

 

 

The window's propped open, an occasional breeze ruffling the white dots of flowers that present themselves more like a miniature bush than a bouquet. A rare pink bud blossoms among the plain canvas. Karen doesn't know where it's come from, but it makes her smile every time she passes by it.

Bent over her desk now as she pours through police report after police report, looking for inconsistencies and errors to back up her source, she catches sight of the flowers ruffling in the corner of her eye at the same time a tap sounds on wood. Her head jolts up.

There's no one at the window, befuddling her for half a second before her eyes flick to the doorway. Frank stands there leaned against the jam, shadows stretching behind him as if he's just emerged from them. She supposes that, in a way, he has. It gives her a mild sense of déjà vu to the last time Matt was here in her office, an equally as unexpected occurrence, but this is far too difference.

For one, Frank's relaxed where Matt stood stiff.

He gestures with a spinning finger at the ceiling. "This building's only got 4 security cameras, you realize that?"

"Two in the lobby, two in the parking garage." Karen sits back as her eyes roam over him.

Considering how often his name showed up in the crime section of her paper and on the nightly news broadcast, he looked surprisingly...fine. Unruly hair, beard in need of a trim, but his clothes were intact and without obvious smudges of dirt or blood, face suspiciously lacking in marks except for one lone yellowing blemish on his right cheek. She catches sight of his knuckles then when he lowers his hand.

Healing cuts and purple bruises.

That was more along the lines of what she expected. For some strange reason, it puts her more at ease, too.

Frank's eyes linger on the pot by the window for a beat before he steps forward. "There's only one working in the garage now."

He sits without prompting on one of the chairs across from her desk. Karen sighs, equal parts exasperated and relaxed. "You could've called. Or sent another note."

With an itchy finger, his head turns near the window. "It, uh, looked nice. The wake."

"...You were there?"

He shakes his head. "Passed by. Not my place to be."

"You saved his life once."

"Yeah." Frank idly folds his hands together, constantly in motion. "Once."

There's a heaviness in the last word she's all too clearly able to identify. Regret.

None of them were immune from the effects of losing Matt, then. It strikes a quick arrow of resentment through her, but as soon as it comes, it's gone again, and she's left with empty acquiescence at the cruelly unpredictable world.

Karen sets her pen aside. "I didn't get a chance to thank you for the flowers." He meets her stare with a shrug, watching as her expression morphs into curiosity. "Why those?"

"Florist spun a pretty story of bullshit."

A breath of a chuckle startles from her, caught off-guard by Frank being...well, Frank. A twinge in her chest forces her to acknowledge for the first time in months that she's missed him. Not the Punisher, not his never-ending quest, but him. Him and this all too comfortable balance between them.

A slight curve pulls his lips as his eyes narrow, assessing her. She doesn't mind.

"I know you wouldn't be here if there wasn't something else important going on, but. You want some coffee first? It's a fresh pot."

Hesitant, he nods.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The flowers branch out, flourish, and then fall apart all over again. Karen finds herself perusing the gardening section of the bookstore to unearth a dummy's guide on how to trim them so she doesn't have to repeat the cycle of throwing them out and buying new.

"Honestly, when you said you had research to do, there was absolutely no part of me that thought we'd be stuck in this aisle."

She casts a brief smile over at Trish. "Yeah, well, I'm full of surprises."

"What about this one?" The other blonde holds up what looks more like an encyclopedia than an instructional manual. Catching Karen's look, she smirks. "Got it, wrong direction."

"Where are the simple, barely fifty-page things with pictures? I don't know half these terms," she sighs. "Which is ironic, actually.... My mom always tried to teach me this stuff."

"Really? What'd she have, balcony pots or something?"

"Garden plot. Vermont," she shares.

Trish abandons the other side of the aisle and comes up beside her now, grinning with interest. "Really? God, I never would've guessed that."

"Thanks, I think?"

"It's a compliment, I swear. You get pissed off at this city sometimes with all the passion of a native that actually cares too much."

Karen laughs, pulling two more books from the shelves. "I think these are the best I'm going to do."

"Hey, look on the bright side. If you butcher it, you can always buy another. It's not a Louis Vuitton."

It held more value in her mind than a Louis Vuitton ever could, but she smiles at her friend and stays mum on that as they go back to discussing the latest plans for Trish Talk and it's drift into more investigative material, instead.

Nearly three weeks had passed since Frank came for any extra information she had on a subject of one of her articles -- a union leader that had been embezzling. A connection to a connection of something he was looking into. That was about all she could piece together from his various comments, and she could've pressed, could have demanded more answers, but Karen just looked at him across the galley kitchen and took in how subdued he was behaving.

It was...almost respectful.

He wasn't demanding, he wasn't intruding. He was asking.

With a copy of her file in hand, he disappeared out of her life again with a nod and a quiet "Thank you, ma'am." She didn't mind so much this time. He didn't lie, he didn't pretend, he didn't make promises he couldn't keep. And she wasn't waiting for anything at all.

She was simply here.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The Queen Anne's Lace survives her amateurish attempts at culling it and splitting its roots into two. One twin at the Bulletin, the other sitting simply in the middle of her otherwise perpetually empty dining table.

Autumn casts a vibrant yellow haze over the city once more.

She follows Foggy, Trish, and even Marci's prodding to go on a few dates. The blind set-up from Marci ends in disaster, a terribly boring and self-important finance attorney from another department in their firm, but complaining about it leads to a more fun night of drinks among friends. She considers it like breaking even.

One encounter is more successful than the rest, though. A reporter from the entertainment section that fumbles around her and cracks the funniest jokes at the oddest times. There's a definite lack of spark for something more. Trish waggles her eyebrows and tells her to at least have fun anyway. There's no harm in that and at least if she knows it's going nowhere then she'll know to enjoy the momentary reprieve longer.

Karen decides to take the advice and, for once, stop thinking of lingering secrets and uncertain futures.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She writes a series of exposes that cover the front page of the Sunday paper for four weeks in a row. Ellison's still busy celebrating the boost in readership and intense interest coming from the other end of his constantly ringing phone line when she's shutting her office door behind her and finds another plain pot on her desk.

Stems wider where the last were tall, these are colorful and yet just as unassuming with tiny cones tipped more indigo than blue. She would be curious to know if the florist spun another tale of bullshit for Frank, snorts at the image that drifts to mind. Once is a fluke. Twice is a repeat. Three times marks a habit.

Karen wonders if she's going to have to clear more space on the bookshelf by the window as her fingers gently coast over stiff petals before picking up the white card stuck into dirt again.

_'Nice work.'_

A smirk curls her lips as she shakes her head.

Whatever Frank was thinking, she doesn't try to decipher it. Maybe he did enjoy her articles. Maybe they lead him in some bloody direction she had yet to hear about. Maybe he just needed to focus on something else after a particularly bad day. At the end of it all, the reasoning doesn't really matter as Karen takes the compliment for what it is and leaves it at that.

She finds a spot for it on the bookshelf and cleans up some more of the surface as well. Anticipation thrums through her, low and steady.

Once with a reason. Twice with an excuse. There would be a third time creating a habit.

Life grew far too unpredictable for her liking, but Karen is certain of this.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (Frank definitely got spun another pretty story of bullshit, FYI.) The second flowers were Misty Blue for those of you curious enough to look them up! Funnily enough, I pay no mind to flowers or flower symbolism in real life, but when it comes to writing fics.... Every. Damn. Time. It's a weakness.
> 
> I'm not really sure how I feel about this piece; it took on a mind of its own, walking an entirely different direction from straight on platonic or romantic or really any definition of anything. Anyway, I recommend giving a listen to the song if you haven't, and thanks for reading!! :)


End file.
